Restrictive collective bargaining laws have been advanced in several states recently. In a public referendum in November, Ohio voters rejected [JURIST report] a bill passed in March [JURIST report] which would have impacted Ohio's 400,000 public workers by limiting their ability to strike and collectively bargain for health insurance and pensions. Ten Wisconsin unions filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] in federal court in June challenging the state's new collective bargaining law. According to the plaintiffs, the Wisconsin bill discriminates among groups of public employees and eliminates basic union rights, like bargaining, organizing and associating. In July, a judge for the US District Court for the District of Idaho [official website] issued a preliminary injunction [JURIST report] blocking the enforcement of an Idaho anti-union law [SB 1007] that bans a union program that subsidizes employment for its members. The law, called the Fairness in Contracting Act, prohibits union programs used by construction workers unions that pool portions of union wages on a voluntary basis to subsidize union labor to enable union members to be hired at the collectively bargained salary.

About Paper Chase

Paper Chase is JURIST's real-time legal news service, powered by a team of 30 law student reporters and editors led by law professor Bernard Hibbitts at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. As an educational service, Paper Chase is dedicated to presenting important legal news and materials rapidly, objectively and intelligibly in an accessible format.